The story I heard of ‘ the poor little fiat with lotus twin cam up its
…. ‘ it is a restoration of David[?] Renders ’60s sprint car , this
was based on a Tornado cars conversion of the Fiat 500 to fit a cortina
engine in the back [ Tornado cars were celebrating their 50th
anniversary at Burford ]
Apparently Colin Chapman , who new Render , suggested that he might
like to try one of his brand new Cortina engines in the back !!
Very quick in a straight line , not so good around corners , me thinks !!
CarlThanks again to Carl for this info. David Render was an ex-RAC Sprint champion who also campaigned a variety of powerful single seaters. I can remember him competing in Falcon sprints at Duxford in the early 70’s. I seemed to remember he owned a company called Warecrete and a bit of Googling came up with this on a site advertising after dinner speakers:-David
Render– Ex- military, ex-racing car
driver, businessman. He has lived life to the full and all his talks are from
first hand experience. Be astonished at his exploits at aged 19 years when he
commanded a troop of three Sherman
tanks against the might of the German Panzers Wehrmacht
and SS divisions. Be amazed at his knowledge of Competitive car racing
acquired over 50 years and finally be truly impressed at how this man built a
bankrupt company called Warecrete into a thriving
business that produced hundreds of tons of concrete and thousands of building
blocks per day. He also owned and ran a farm which produced hundreds of tons
of wheat and 5000 pigs per year, for food.

One Response to More on Specials Day and a bit about David Render

Its good to see the car again. It\’s actually a Fiat 600 and made it\’s first public appearance at the 1964 Blackbush Drag Fest. Built by Tornado Cars it originally had the registration number BOM1 and sported an external radiator bolted to the front. A week later it turned up at Serck Radiators, Park Royal where, after a search of the shelves we sold Tornado a radiator originally made for the Dowty Turbocraft speedboat, small and neat enough to fit inside the front boot compartment, neatened things up nicely. There was a Ford powered Renault Dauphine at the same meeting cobbled together by the Lawrence tune mechanics and a Triumph Hearld bodied Jaguar XK150 that the Downton/Janspeed lads had made. I saw the TriJag some years later on Anglesea, wonder what happened to it? I\’ve come over all nostalgic!